Mamma Melina Ristorante & Pizzeria — Restaurant in Seattle

Walking in, we were very encouraged by the atmosphere: The art, uniquely hung ON the ceiling; the white linen, the chandeliers in the back room. Add in the concrete floor with strip mall location and windows, and it was Victorian meets Urban sprawl... kinda cool.

The wine list was plentiful, and the menu enticing. Unfortunately, the food didn't match the hype the menu portrayed. The easiest way to describe all three dishes we had is: Non-descript.

There was nothing there... the Bruschette lacked traditional tapenade, and was basically just olive tomatoes in Italian dressing on a toasted slice of baguette. It was MEH.

Our entrees fared no better.

Between the two of us we had the 'Saltimbocca di pollo alla romana ', and 'Scampi alla griglia in pancetta' . All sounds good when spoken in Italian, but....

I will say that I enjoyed my scampi, but that was NOT pancetta it was wrapped in, but VERY potent smoked AMERICAN bacon. Still good... but bacon is much more potent a cured meat than pancetta, and it overpowered the prawns.... it was also doused in butter. The accompanying 'linguine pomodoro' should have been 'linguine de burro' as the pomodoro was just sliced grape tomatoes with the pasta drenched in butter.

The Pollo was bland and completely lacking any flavor. The Pinot grigio reduction may as well have been an agua reduction... this dish was sent back and we were comped for it after a brief complaint. Waiter indicated the chef tasted it, and confirmed it wasn't right. Well, that's good, but... eww?

Our waiter was very nice, and did nothing wrong, but was clearly lacking experience... my wife pushed her full plate away and to the side, and yet NO ONE asked about it with any concern. Not until I was done did someone ask about it, and it wasn't "Is everything okay with your dish ma'am?", it was "Would you like a box?" Nope.

It's a cute place, and we had high hopes, but 0/3 on the items we ordered unfortunately won't warrant a...

Disappointing. The reviews are very misleading! You’d think this would be a great Italian restaurant, but it does not live up to the hype in the least.

So we made a reservation and were seated quickly...next to huge birthday party of 6 year olds- at 8pm- on a Friday. Unlike other guests, we were pleased that our tablecloth was NOT yanked on by roving children.

Brushing that aside, we ordered the carpaccio, lasagnette, and bucatini with sauce and were completely underwhelmed. The carpaccio was okay, but we had ordered crostini to accompany it, and it only arrived after 10 minutes, and a reminder from my husband. The sauce for both the lasagnette and bucatini was exactly the same- a salty orange tomato sauce with interesting meat. I could have cooked it better at home, or thrown some frozen pasta into the oven. It wasn’t terrible, but for the price it was ridiculous.

The waitstaff was nice enough, but inexperienced. We didn’t hear about the specials, and after my husband pushed his food away after a few bites, no one asked if his food was okay. No one asked if we wanted another drink, and we waited quite a while for the check.

The last part is, when we were leaving, we noticed that the restaurant food safety grade was rated “okay.” WHAAAT! For a place that expensive, for food that bad, is unacceptable. Save yourself the time and money and make...

I've been to Mamma Melina a couple of times now for dinner. The atmosphere is nice and the service has always been pretty solid; friendly and attentive without being overbearing. I think the food and drink is where things are a bit of a let down. On the food side, I've had their Melina pizza, which while tasty, did not taste of truffle at all despite it being a listed topping. Their lamb shank was tender and well cooked, but the entire dish was under-seasoned, the polenta was a bit watery and lumpy and the vegetables it came with were bland, inconsistently cooked, and felt like an afterthought. My dining partner had their special chicken parmigiana, but also felt the need to be liberal with the salt-shaker to breath some life back into it. They felt it was fairly mid, but enjoyed the Tiramisu dessert, saying it was light and well balanced, not overwhelmingly boozy like some can be. On the beverages side, I've had some decent wine and enjoyed an Aperol Spritz, but been disappointed by a poorly made Manhattan that discouraged me from ordering any further cocktails.

Overall, I feel the execution side on the food/bev is just a bit lacking for my taste and I'm more likely to try other places if...